Losing trust before you get off the ground can be devastating
Mobile payment is a hot field right now, and it looks like whoever comes out as the clear favorite is going to reap serious benefits. One newcomer to the field, CurrentC, has already encountered a major hurdle in the form of a data breach.
Earlier this week, the below email went out to CurrentC beta testers:
Thank you for your interest in CurrentC. You are receiving this message because you are either a participant in our pilot program or requested information about CurrentC. Within the last 36 hours, we learned that unauthorized third parties obtained the e-mail addresses of some of you. Based on investigations conducted by MCX security personnel, only these e-mail addresses were involved and no other information.
In an abundance of caution, we wanted to make you aware of this incident and urge you not to open links or attachments from unknown third parties. Also know that neither CurrentC nor Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) will ever send you emails asking for your financial account, Social Security number or other personally identifiable information. So if you are ever asked for this information in an email, you can be confident it is not from us and you should not respond.
MCX is continuing to investigate this situation and will provide updates as necessary. We take the security of your information extremely seriously, apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your support of CurrentC.
Now (at least at this point) it looks to be only email addresses affected, but when you have other alternatives would you go with the one that lost personal data before it even went live? This is exactly how the public will be thinking, and why CurrentC must do everything in its power to show it can be trusted, or it will be dead in the water before it ever has a chance to attract a users to its platform.
The BCM Blogging Team
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com